First off, my apologies for not having this up last night. Site maintenance caused a delay in posting.

For the final entry in our Fight of the Year series, we look at something a bit different...

Pornsaneh v. Pakon (Lumpinee Stadium, May 3)

My original plan was to include just kickboxing rules fights here, but reader cacti45 reminded me of this Muay Thai contest which would be criminal to exclude. Google this fight and you'll see phrases like "the best Muay Thai fight I've seen in years" and "some of the wildest action ever". How can you leave that out? This is the consensus Muay Thai fight of the year for 2010, and rightly so. Here you have Pornsaneh in red v. Pakon in blue. Pornsaneh at the time was at 13 Coins Gym, but has since made the switch to Sitmonchai, while Pakon is at Sakyotin. This is a very atypical Muay Thai contest, as Pornsaneh in particular is an aggressive fighter. He oushes the pace here right from the start, and Pakon responds, creating an excellent fight. It all culminates in round 4 (which starts at 1:30 in the 2nd clip) - if you don't watch the whole fight, you at least owe it to yourself to watch that round, which is like the Frye/Takayama of Muay Thai.

Great stuff there. Pakon picks up the win in what also is a nice example of Muay Thai scooring techniques. If you were looking at this from a pure kickboxing standpoint, you might give the win to Pornsaneh, who lands more. But Pakon uses more kicks and knees, which score higher in Muay Thai, so he earns the decision. Hope you enjoyed this one.